Monday, 28 October 2013

A number of
exchanges on Facebook regarding the Sinterklaas tradition which
is the Low Countries' equivalent though contrived of Santa Claus had me
rummaging through the memories of my almost 13 year sojourn in the Netherlands.

The topic concerned
the helpers of Sinterklaas called Zwarte Piet (Black Pete).
These are usually Caucasians with blackened faces in clothes of flamboyant contrasting
colours somewhat modelled on the Moors as Sinterklaas is said to visit the
Netherlands from Spain.

Much as I
understand that the blackening of faces might present a culture shock to
foreigners observing this tradition for the first time, it does not remotely
pertain to outright racism apart from the general idea of a master-servant relationship
between Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet.

Know your history

What bothers me is
the tendency for certain people to arrogate to themselves either real or
imagined histories of figures and traditions they have no affinity with and in
the process they begin to personify the victim complex of those cultures.

On the broader
issue of our humanity, we do recognise that we all have a responsibility to
seek the institution and enforcement of broad human rights for freedoms and the
pursuit of happiness.

However, it is also
important that we recognise our core identities such that we do not appear to race
ahead of the discussion that pertains to the rights of others in groups that we
do not essentially belong due to many factors beyond race and residence.

Too diverse for colour to matter

My view of the
black race is that it is just as diverse as any other race. Though we might
have shared histories of oppression and indignities suffered through centuries,
it is important that we recognise the differences in our history within the compendium of
many histories in Africa, in the Caribbean, in North America, in South America
and now recently in Europe.

Whilst centuries
ago, Africans might have shared in the broader cruel history of slavery towards
either the Middle East or the Americas, each destination developed a divergent
history where the commonality of race is the only affinity between us after
which we are all very different people.

In Africa, Blacks
might people the Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone parts of Africa, but within those countries that make up these groupings, we are radically
different in culture, tribe, tradition and histories that the artificially cobbled-together nations we belong to are mostly geographical expressions that
we have learnt to live with.

How to join a struggle

We can identify with
and join a struggle for the liberation of other oppressed members of our race,
but we must be careful that in our identifying with a cause we do not lose our
identity and history to complete assimilation, uprooted from the ancestry and
moorings of who we are.

Other Africans
joined together to fight Apartheid, but we fought as free people seeking the
freedom of our brothers and sisters; we did not become South African and put ourselves
under the influence of Apartheid to stand in the face of the shootings in
Soweto.

Quite heterogeneous

In Britain, the
tendency to see the black race as homogenous is dangerous. The majority
Caucasian indigenous and growing foreign population though white, rarely
identify that strongly along racial lines as Africans, African Americans, Caribbean
or similar people of colour do.

They have their
languages, culture, histories and strong identities linked to regions, customs,
traditions and many other common traits that sets each grouping out as unique.

I sometimes fear
that we coalesce and school together like fish on issues where we are
essentially birds of a completely different feather.

Zwarte Piet is hardly the problem

It is why I could
not countenance the apparent righteous indignation bordering on apoplectic rage,
of African residents of England to Zwarte Piet. The debate is ongoing in the
Netherlands about cultural and politically correct elements of retaining that
aspect of the Sinterklaas culture.

It is healthy, interesting and robust, but it is nowhere near the zest for insurrection demonstrated by racial impostors from abroad, who might have found another roller coaster bandwagon to hitch a ride on.

We indeed must have
debates about racism, racial equality, race relations, race history and
probably revisit history for understanding, appreciation, recognition and
reparation of wrongs of the past and present – I do not think that debate can
be had with wrestling Zwarte Piet to the ground in either horseplay or mortal
combat.

The fight for
dignity is paramount beyond race, but we lose focus when we decide to take more
offence on issues where our affinity with the people we presume are not
liberated is tenuous at best.

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I have many stories to tell, I am English of Nigerian parentage, I lived in the Netherlands for 12 years, returned to the UK recently but still have wander lust - the rest is somewhere online, most likely in on blogs.